ACRES Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1567) to require that the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior submit accurate reports regarding hazardous fuels reduction activities, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1567, as amended, the bill now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of Representative Tiffany's legislation, H.R. 1567, the Accurately Counting Risk Elimination Solutions, or ACRES Act.

This is a commonsense, good governance bill that will bring sorely needed transparency and accountability to the misleading way our Federal land managers are tracking and reporting hazardous fuel treatments.

We remain in the midst of a historic catastrophic wildfire crisis that has devoured an average of 7 million acres every year for the last two decades. This alarming figure is more than double the annual losses seen during the 1990s.

This worsening problem is directly linked to insufficient forest management, which has created a dangerous build-up of hazardous fuels in our forest. Despite the clear need to confront this crisis head on, Federal land management agencies like the Forest Service are still failing to increase the pace and scale of their treatments.

Even more concerning is the recent investigative reporting by NBC News that found that the Forest Service is overreporting the number of acres they treat annually by over 20 percent. This happens because the Forest Service will count the same piece of land toward its risk reduction goals multiple times if different treatments, such as prescribed thinning and burning, are completed on that land.

In some extreme cases, the Forest Service counted the same parcel of land 30 times, meaning the agency reported to Congress that they reduced hazardous fuels on 30 acres when, in fact, only one acre had received treatment.

This problem gets worse if treatments can span several years. For example, NBC News found an example of a hazardous fuels reduction project in southern California that lasted for 5 years. The Forest Service reported that they treated 744 acres of land when, in fact, only 173 acres had been treated.

If the Forest Service were treating at the order of magnitude that they need to be treating, these numbers wouldn't matter, but I think inflating the numbers is just a way to try to cover up the inadequate management that is happening. Instead of talking about hundreds of acres, we need to be talking about thousands and tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of acres that are being treated.

This kind of reporting means that the Forest Service suggested to Congress and the public that they are doing as much as four times more work than they had actually accomplished. This is absolutely unacceptable, particularly in an area where wildfire risk and the risk to communities is extremely high.

This legislation simply requires the Forest Service to submit data to Congress annually that details their hazardous fuels reduction work by only counting each individual acre once even if multiple treatments were performed. This exact idea has been supported in reports from the Government Accountability Office and USDA's Office of Inspector General.

The fact that we need to pass legislation to tell the Forest Service to count the way that we all learned how to count should show us just how deep this problem runs within our agencies when it comes to confronting our catastrophic wildfire crisis.

By holding Federal land managers accountable for their actual work, the work that they are doing on the ground to help improve forest health and to make our Nation's forests safer for all of us, we are required to do this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I commend Representative Tiffany for bringing this bill forward. I ask that we support this bill strongly, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Agriculture,

Washington, DC, September 5, 2023.

Hon. Bruce Westerman,

Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: This letter confirms our mutual

understanding regarding H.R. 1567, the ``Accurately Counting

Risk Elimination Solutions Act'', or the ``ACRES Act''. Thank

you for collaborating with the Committee on Agriculture on

the matters within our jurisdiction.

The Committee on Agriculture will forego any further

consideration of this bill. However, by foregoing

consideration at this time, we do not waive any jurisdiction

over any subject matter contained in this or similar

legislation. The Committee on Agriculture also reserves the

right to seek appointment of an appropriate number of

conferees should it become necessary and ask that you support

such a request.

We would appreciate a response to this letter confirming

this understanding with respect to H.R. 1567 and request a

copy of our letters on this matter be published in the

Congressional Record during Floor consideration.

Sincerely,

Glenn ``GT'' Thompson,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Tiffany), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Lands and the sponsor of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time. I am prepared to close, and I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that we do everything in our power to ensure that our forests are being managed properly. The ACRES Act is one small step in the right direction. It is a commonsense solution to a problem that really shouldn't even exist in the first place.

Again, I thank the ranking member in the minority for supporting this bill. The idea that we are actually moving toward more forest management is encouraging to me.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1567, the Accurately Counting Risk Elimination Solutions (ACRES) Act of 2023.

Drought conditions and invasive grasses throughout the country in recent years have compounded the threat of wildfires, and the recent wildfires on Maui serve as a tragic reminder of how serious the risks are. These wildfires devastated a vibrant community and serve as a stark warning sign of the reality of such risks.

Federal lands are particularly vulnerable to wildfires, as they alone experience a fifth of the country's wildfires every year. To combat this danger, the ACRES Act will help mitigate the risk of wildfires across the country by mandating that our Department of Agriculture and Department of the Interior conduct more accurate risk assessment tracking of dry invasive grasses on our federal lands. This will help prevent wildfires before they start. This legislation will also mandate that data collection processes involved in wildfire risk assessments be updated and standardized across both departments to ensure that their cooperation will be seamless and efficient.

Each department will also be required to submit a report of the number of acres of federal lands that underwent a risk assessment every year and provide critical information on wildland-urban interface and wildfire risk. The ACRES Act will add an extra layer of oversight and public transparency to ensure the accuracy of wildfire risk assessments, allowing for more effective wildfire prevention.

This legislation will be especially helpful in Hawaii, which has large public land holdings and currently suffers from a higher risk of wildfires due to vast swaths of land being overrun by dry invasive grasses, directly linking to fires across my state every year. This commonsense bill will enable us to reduce hazardous fuels and protect our communities from this threat.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help advance smart data collection and protect our public lands from wildfire by supporting this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for his support throughout the process in regard to this bill.

There is very little that I can add to what the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee has laid out in his opening remarks in regard to the need for the ACRES Act. One of the few things I can add is a picture.

The picture to my right here shows the need for this bill. When the amount of acres that are being treated are not counted accurately, we end up with a situation where those acres that should be treated don't get treated. This is the Grizzly Flats fire a couple years ago that wiped out that community. The Forest Service knew that it was time that these treatments needed to be put in place, and they weren't, and a community was destroyed out in the great State of California.

This bill will bring transparency to the misleading and inaccurate way hazardous fuels treatments are reported. Decades of mismanagement of our Federal lands have left our forests overstocked and created tinderbox conditions.

We have long known the reported pace and scale of forest management has been insufficient to truly address our forest health crisis. There is a better way to manage our public lands, and that starts with holding our Federal land management agencies accountable by requiring accurate reporting on the effectiveness of their work in fuel reduction.

According to troubling reports, the situation is even worse than we have been led to believe, as agencies have

been overstating their treatments by over 20 percent.

Accurate reporting is necessary to broadly track the progress made on our larger wildfire mitigation targets, as well as individual projects.

The ACRES Act is a simple solution to hold our Federal agencies accountable to see the actual work they are doing to reduce the enormous risk of wildfire.

American taxpayers deserve to know they are getting what they paid for. This bill is one of the steps needed to help ensure that happens.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 1567 introduced by my colleague from Wisconsin, Representative Tiffany.

The United States Forest Service manages millions of acres of forestland, including vital watersheds, critical wildlife habitat, and countless outdoor recreational areas.

The Forest Service's 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy Implementation Plan stresses the importance of fire-adapted landscapes and hazardous fuel treatments to build resilient forests.

Wildfire risk reduction projects are complex multistep processes requiring significant planning and investments often carried out over several years.

Therefore, it is important that we receive accurate, transparent, and accessible data on how forest management projects are being planned and implemented.

This legislation would require the agency to include a report in the President's annual budget on hazardous fuel activities carried out in a given fiscal year to account for each treated acre.

This ongoing reporting requirement will enhance transparency and accountability, providing critical information that can help guide investments in management of our national forests--including how we deploy our historic investments in wildfire risk reduction efforts that were included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss H.R. 1567, which will require the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior to submit accurate reports regarding hazardous fuels reduction activity.

Hazardous fuels reduction activity is an important effort to curb wildfires.

Some sources state that wildfires cost the United States upwards of $3 billion in damage from 2022 to 2023 and have destroyed 616,486 acres across the United States since January of this year.

In the State of Texas alone, three quarters of the state have been issued a wildfire declaration.

In the city of Houston, wildfires have damaged the air quality and burned through several homes, negatively affecting many civilians' lives.

Due to both the environmental and economic havoc that wildfires present, it is important that we have accurate reporting to best prepare for these disasters.

This bill is important because it monitors the risk elimination solutions for wildfires in an accurate and dependable manner while also allowing oversight of the USDA and the Interior.

This bill is a first step to accurately determine effective methods to reduce the risk of wildfire and because of this I ask my colleagues to support this bill.